Many people take a dim view of password recovery tools for ethical reasons -- understandably so. You have a tool that can, in some cases, crack passwords on machines where you don't belong. But in certain situations, these tools may be the only thing that can save you from having to go as far as reinstalling the operating system.

Let's take a look at five "free" password recovery tools. I say "free" because in some cases there are tables that must be purchased (such as rainbow tables) to break some types of passwords.

Note: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

Photo: iStockphoto.com/proxyminder

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

LCP is a user-account password recovery tool for Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. This tool can recover using a dictionary attack, brute force attack, or a hybrid dictionary/brute force attack. LCP allows you to import from a local computer, remote computer, SAM file, .LC file, LCS file, PwDump file, and Sniff file.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

As with many of these applications, you should avoid using your machine while LCP recovers passwords, as it will consume the majority of your machine resources for the crack.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

Ophcrack is one of the most popular password recovery tools. It's free (open source as well), cross platform, and very reliable. Ophcrack uses a solid implementation of rainbow tables that just happens to have been done by those who created the method.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

Ophcrack runs on Windows, Linux/UNIX, and Mac. It cracks LM and NTLM hashes; has free tables for XP, Vista, and 7; includes a brute-force module for simple passwords; offers an audit mode and a CSV export; presents real-time graphs; has a LiveCD for easier (and more efficient) recovery; and dumps and loads hashes from encrypted SAM.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

Windows Key can reset your Windows password for you. This is different from the other tools, in that it doesn't recover a list of user passwords or even recover from a file. Windows Key creates a bootable CD (or USB device) you can use to boot the machine and recover the password.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

Windows Key is simple to use, and it can reset both local (standard version) and domain admin account (Enterprise edition only) passwords. It promises a 100% recovery rate. Although Windows Key has a free trial, you'll have to pony up for the full version (Standard $39.00 USD, Enterprise $295.00 USD) before you can really recover any passwords.

There are three editions of this tool: Standard ($19.95 USD), Professional ($29.95 USD), and Enterprise ($49.95 USD). Only the Enterprise and Professional editions can recover passwords. (Enterprise can even recover domain admin password.) The standard version simply removes the passwords, and it doesn't support the USB flashdrive method.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

Hash Suite is marketed as a program designed to test the security of password hashes. It's incredibly powerful and offers high performance (one of the fastest crackers available), an easy-to-use GUI, reports and statistics, and all the features of modern crackers. It also works on large number of hashes.

Published: May 24, 2012 -- 09:13 GMT (02:13 PDT)

Caption by: Jack Wallen

This is the go-to tool when you need to recover (or test) a number of password hashes. Please note: To successfully use this tool, you will need to employ a pwdump tool to gain the necessary hashes for Hash Suite to crack. Here is a list of possible pwdump tools.

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Windows Key can reset your Windows password for you. This is different from the other tools, in that it doesn't recover a list of user passwords or even recover from a file. Windows Key creates a bootable CD (or USB device) you can use to boot the machine and recover the password.